The “Ecological Imperative” in Literary Studies

Abstract

The ‘ecological imperative’ (Hans Jonas) manifests in different ways according to the linguistic, generic, medial, and semiotic conditions in which it is communicated. This is also true of creative forms of cultural practice such as literature and the aesthetic. The ecological imperative in literature is conveyed not primarily through its discursive content but through the narrative, formal, and aesthetic procedures themselves that literary texts employ, that is, through the translation of the autopoietic complexities of the aesthetic into the co-creative responsiveness of its recipients. The paper starts with some comments on the underestimated relationship between literature and survival; looks at some of the ways in which the intrinsic eco-ethical dimension of literature has been described in ecocriticism, distinguishing three major directions of material, political, and cultural ecology in the field; and addresses the ecological imperative in transdisciplinary contexts that are significant for environmental studies in general, sustainability and the Anthropocene. The paper ends with a list of features of literature as a medium of the ecological imperative from a cultural-ecological perspective.